Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Governments meeting last week to discuss a possible new treaty on industrial design harmonisation snagged slightly at the end over how to chart a course to a treaty negotiation, but otherwise reported a smooth week of talks. Officials also agreed to plan a meeting on internet service provider liability.
In a surprise and fully uncorroborated development, it appears that World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry has been named a new contributor to an illustrious IP blog. The announcement came at the same time as news that WIPO will likely embark on wishing for an annual crackdown list of global IP blogs deemed to be inadequately living up to the highest levels of intellectual property protection and decorum.
Filing complaints about cybersquatting, which the World Intellectual Property Organization defines as the “abusive registration of trademarks as domain names,” is on an upward trend, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said today. Meanwhile, WIPO also launched a review of its dispute panellists.
The World Intellectual Property Organization went to India last week to highlight the country’s success in creating a digital library of Indian traditional knowledge, which it uses to prevent illegitimate patenting of its resources. But whether WIPO found a way to fit the Indian project into the UN agency’s mission to protect and promote intellectual property rights was unclear.
Comments on the future of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) - which makes the underlying changes to the internet - are slowly trickling in at the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), with five days to go to the end of a consultation period. In its comments, the body managing the IANA functions for the United States suggests moving control of those functions out of longstanding, singular US control.
Google’s efforts to resolve questions of copyright infringement in its digital library project did not yield the hoped-for result as a district court judge yesterday rejected the agreement. But the judge left open the possibility that the parties could come back again with revisions.
Legitimate efforts in the United States to address counterfeiting problems have been “hijacked” to benefit rights holders who should protect their own interests and change their business models, the Computer & Communications Industry Association has said.
The traditional copyright system’s balance for encouraging yet controlling access to copyrighted works in order to extract value for them has met with a destructive force in the internet that it cannot overcome without changing itself, the head of the World Intellectual Property Organization said recently in a landmark speech. And he proposed several elements for the way forward.
A large (440-page) new report on media piracy in emerging economies is stirring significant debate in internet copyright and open access circles, as it purports to turn rights owner assertions and the basis for developed country IP policy on their heads.
BRUSSELS - In an arm-wrestling exercise, governments and the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) last week tried to reach common ground on intellectual property rights protection and governments' ability to intervene with applications for new top-level domains that they see as “sensitive” or “vulnerable” like .nazi, .gay or .bank.
Recent events in the Arab region have brought the issue of access to the internet and social platforms sharply into the spotlight as governments have tried to block or limit internet access and cut millions of people from communication. A United States-hosted panel discussion in Geneva yesterday brought together representatives of Google, Facebook, and Access, a civil society group defending digital freedom.
A group of country experts are gathered at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week to elaborate a draft text on intellectual property and traditional knowledge. The positive momentum set by the results obtained by experts on traditional cultural expressions last July paved the way for this week’s agenda.